Heaven's Just A Dream Away
by Betz88
Summary: Wilson is immersed in a very strange dream. What is happening to House? Worse yet, what is happening to HIM? And what will he find when at last he wakes up?


"Heaven's Just A Dream Away"

Betz88

It was a dream!

Of course it was a dream … because none of the backgrounds around us had any substance. It was like living in a diorama.

And because Gregory House could _walk!_

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I could feel the heat and smell the stench of its exhaust as the big Citibus squealed to a stop in front of the bench where I sat at the corner of Third and Madison. The bus driver threw open the door and the lanky body of my old buddy came vaulting down the steps and landed in front of me like someone had thrown a concertina out an upstairs window.

I could see the disgust on the driver's face as he swung the door closed upon itself again and the bus roared away in another mushroom cloud of vile exhaust fumes. With a snort of sardonic laughter, Gregg gathered himself, rose lazily to his full height again and looked after the old vehicle as it rolled ponderously down the street. I didn't have to see his face to know he was making some kind of juvenile face at the driver who couldn't help but observe his expression in the rear-view mirror.

I stood up and waited for him to stop with the "ten-years-old" act. Nothing new; I spent a lot of time waiting for Gregg so stop doing some goofy something-or-other and get his buzz-saw mind back where it belonged … on the fact that I was meeting him at exactly the time and place he'd told me to meet him.

I stood, hip-sprung, beside the big bench with one foot crossed over the other, leaning against it. Both fists were propped at my beltline in exasperation, and an eye roll was in progress, even as he turned around again and leveled one of those silly wide-eyed grins at me.

Gregg House and I had been friends since we were kids and lived in the same working class neighborhood. He'd always been tall and skinny, all knees and elbows and kinky blonde hair and huge blue eyes. He was, of course, brighter than a combination of any three kids in his whole class, and that was on a good day! His detractors called him "Einstein", and not kindly. I never heard him call any of his classmates, boys and girls alike, anything other than "Bubba" … and that wasn't kind either!

He was a loner, and for good reason. He read books, he did pencil sketches that rivaled the work of Norman Rockwell, and he played the piano like a pro while his mind was a thousand miles away on something else, and he was staring at the ceiling. And he could sing. He had a cool soprano voice until he got to puberty. After that he sounded like a wounded water buffalo for a year until it finally leveled into a mellow baritone that was the envy of the entire school district. But would he join the school orchestra? Or the chorus? Of course not. He invented the phrase "Dog and Pony Show", and refused to be put on display like "Baby Snooks".

_Who?_

So why did he choose to be friends with me? I was a geek before the word was invented. I was a computer nerd before there were computers, and I wore dark-rimmed glasses that were constantly sliding down to the end of my nose. I was constantly pushing them back up in order to see anything, and Gregg thought this was hilariously funny. He used to tell me if I didn't "masking-tape" them into place, he'd do it himself with thumbtacks. Before I got to know him really _really_ well, I sort of thought he actually might!

He did tell me one time, in an offhand manner, that I would probably look "cute in a goofy way" if I'd lose the glasses and get contacts. Trying to return the compliment, I told him that he would probably look good unshaven. We both thought about it, but we both decided against those changes. He continued to shave and I continued to push my glasses up my nose a hundred times a day.

I too was a skinny, lanky kid, but not nearly as handsome and devil-may-care as Gregg. My hair was mouse brown and my eyes … well … Gregg called them "shit brown" … and I guess I had no cause not to believe him. I could play guitar and violin and banjo and string bass, but I really couldn't sing very well. Gregg once told me I sang through my nose, and sounded like the "east wind blowing over a barn full of old toilets". That description didn't paint very pretty mind pictures, so I seldom vocalized.

So here we were. Both grown men and still with a touch of the teenager about us. We were professionals; doctors, actually, with duties and responsibilities that tied us to our chosen professions the way Indians tied early settlers to stakes in the ground. And the stakes were immovable and the Indians might be dying. We had to figure out a way to tear loose from the stakes and save the Indians, even if they didn't particularly want to be saved! Sometimes we made it. Sometimes we didn't. And sometimes it seemed the Indians weren't very grateful, no matter what we did.

They say that the more complicated the mind, the more urgent the need for the simplicity of play. So when Gregory House and I got a day off and went out to play, we left no stone unturned in our "urgent" quest to make that astute observation a part of the "Gospel According to Gregg and Jim" … Jim, being, of course, yours truly …

He had his tennis racquet in his backpack and I had mine in mine. He was already in tennis shoes, shorts, headband and tee shirt. He didn't fool around. He would have to change clothes only once … _after_ the match.

Me? Shortsighted me? Blue jeans. Sandals. Baseball hat. Muscle shirt. Once we got to the tennis courts at the university, I'd have to change into my tennis clothes, then shower and change again after the match … or matches … however long it took us to wear ourselves down to a frazzle and bag it for the day. Since it was already late August, it shouldn't take that long! We were both in our forties … old men in tennis circles. Only thing was, with his long legs and wiry body, Gregg could play rings around anybody half his age!

And me, four years his junior … it just wasn't fair!

He waited for me to change in the field house locker room and come back down to the courts. He was standing there like a reigning sovereign, yakking up a couple of pretty girls at the nets and effortlessly bouncing a ball around on his racquet like a kid with a Hackey Sack showing off for Suzie and Tiffany in the sixth grade.

He made some kind of a smart remark that caused the girls to laugh and walk off as I approached. Of course he turned that grin on me and I felt a little paranoid.

In his kind and benevolent way, he allowed me first serve, and we were off and running.

Except for frequent trips to the water fountain over on the grassy circle near the nets, we kept at it most of the day, not even stopping for lunch.

By 2:00 p.m. we were ready to drop. Gregg's Dad would have said: "You look like your asses are dragging your tracks shut." My Dad would have said: "You look like you were rode hard and put away wet." Similar sires from the Dad Herd there.

When we headed for the showers in the field house, we were the only ones there, and our voices and laughter echoed from the walls like we were upstate in the bowels of Ausable Chasm.

By the time we were dressed, back on the street and prowling toward the downtown scene, our hair was dry, but there was moisture collecting again beneath our arms, down our backs, under the collars of our tee shirts and the waistbands of our running shorts. The consequences of a hot shower in the waning days of August! And we were both still lugging backpacks.

Even though the clock on the square said it was only 2:30 in the afternoon, the city was fading out of existence and darkening quickly.

The dream was escalating!

Then every light in the city came on. Neither of us seemed puzzled by that phenomenon. The sky overhead twinkled with stars, and a full moon hovered at the horizon beyond the twin towers.

Car horns blared. Their windows, rolled down against the heat of the night, let loose a cacophony of eclectic sounds from rap to rock 'n' roll, and big bands to calypso. The city's lights, whether from neon rainbows, streetlights, vehicle headlights, or the lights that silhouetted hundreds of skyscrapers against the clouds, gave a touch of eerie magic as we walked slowly along. Gregg was on my right, eyes cast heavenward. His long thin face keenly reflected the glow on smooth skin as he marveled at the sights and sounds all around us.

My own attention was torn between watching him and the panorama surrounding us. We were approaching the theater district. The after-dinner crowds were primed for a carefree hour or two at shows with gaudy marquis, and crowds of ticket scalpers lining every block.

Gregg was enraptured, his gaze drawn to the placards and storyboards at every theater, his nostrils dilated, and his brows knit in wonder. He missed nothing, and I could almost feel his body radiating excitement from where I was moving along on his left, my steps hurrying to keep up with his long stride.

It was the same every time we ventured down here, whether it was on one of the Citibuses, a cab, my car, or the two of us huddled together on the seat of his flashy Honda crotch rocket. Gregg was drawn to the glamour of the "Thee-uh-tuh" as he called it. I often thought he would have been happy as a clam as leader of one of the big pit orchestras … or even as a pianist … one of the spear-carriers in the last row. Why had he become a doctor when his talents could have led him to equal heights as an entertainer?

I supposed my question would never be answered. I knew I would never ask him. Why? Chicken, I guess.

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The dream was changing again … like a camera lens slowly fading out the picture …

We ended up at his place, finally. Like always. On the floor, in front of the couch, across the room from the spinet piano that sat against the far wall. We were eating submarine sandwiches, crunching Doritos. Drinking orange sodas right out of glass bottles.

The clock said midnight, but there was daylight streaming through the windows of his flat, and it was so quiet that you could hear the "tik-tik-tik" of the battery clock on the wall over the bookcase. Sunshine in the middle of the night … our surreal world.

I was tired. My shoulders hurt like crazy, my back was stiff and my legs felt like they were made of cement. At my age, I needed to take up a less strenuous sport than tennis!

Gregg sat beside me, his head down; long bare legs sprawled apart on the throw rug in front of us. His shoes were kicked off into the corner, and he was rubbing his left calf with the toes of his right foot. I guessed I wasn't the only old man in this dynamic duo!

I took another bite of my sandwich, another slug of soda and studied Gregg's face. Was it my imagination, or was he aging by the moment right in front of me?

Hadn't his hair been honey brown on the tennis court? He'd been a blonde as a kid, but over the years it had darkened. My own hair had been chestnut in my younger days … but it had turned to "mouse" as I'd piled on the years.

Now, I was seeing streaks of gray, crows' feet lines at his eyes and mouth, and a gray stubble beginning to appear low on his face. I stared. He had stopped rubbing his leg and was sitting still, staring out the window, and the blue of his eyes was fading. His hands … artist's hands … thinning …the knuckles knobbing with something that could only be arthritis. His cheeks hollowing, cheek bones jutting. His eyes … closing.

_WHAT THE HELL?_

Gregory House was morphing in front of me as I watched. Then, slack-jawed, I began to stare.

The room around us took on a glow, as though a spectral hand were spraying the edges with spurts of gold paint. The floor and ceiling began to fluctuate, undulate with visible sound waves, and for a few moments it made me a little queasy until I looked over at Gregg again.

He hadn't moved. He was still staring out the window, eyes fixated on something far beyond the range of my perception. He seemed transfixed and engulfed by something that held him in a grasp of rapture. His body was stiff, rigid with tension, and I perceived a transformation taking place within him. There was a beatific smile on his face, and for a few moments it looked pasted there.

As I continued to watch with increasing uneasiness, his position changed and his body curled slowly upon itself until his long legs were drawn against his body. His arms drew inward to wrap around his knees like a frightened child who wishes to make himself invisible to the world. The corners of his mouth curled downward and the handsome face drew up suddenly with an expression of pain. The blue eyes dimmed, becoming as bleak as pale chimney smoke.

Alarmed, I moved closer to his side, curious and frightened by the transformation, and wanting nothing more than to offer what I could of shelter and comfort.

Then, when I was near enough to reach out and touch him, my hand was stayed in midair by a force field not of my own making, and I could go no closer. I sat horrified as the metamorphosis continued, and Gregg House became a stranger to me.

He was in pain and whimpering. I had never heard him whimper before, and I was almost embarrassed for him. Nowhere in the vistas of my imagination had anything such as this ever touched me. My limbs were held frozen by a powerful force that kept me in its grasp, powerless to go to him.

I saw his body begin to unclench again as I sat there. His arms came down and his legs straightened in front of him. Life returned to his eyes and he looked around as though puzzled by the whole thing. Then his attention was drawn downward, his eyes now fixed on his long legs. The look of pain returned, and his hands went to a spot midway on his right thigh.

His mouth curled into a grimace and his hands pressed with all their strength on his upper leg … and Gregg screamed. There was no other word for the sound that came from his throat. He screamed in pain and suddenly he was doubled over his leg, and he was sobbing.

I struggled to move, my arms flailing, my body thrusting forward, but it was no use. Whatever held me was unrelenting and I could not touch him.

Something terrible was happening to my friend, and I was helpless. Fascinated and horrified, I sat and watched. I could feel the hot tears that dimmed my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I did not try to contain them.

This could not be happening!

Weak with pain and exhausted by his body's reaction, he collapsed at last against the front of the couch, and his hands slipped away from their grasp on his leg and lay lax at his sides. I looked across to the place where they had been clamped …

… and this time it was I who screamed.

"Noooo … ! Oh no!"

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There was a hole in his leg. A hole the size of a moon crater. A hole that screamed to my doctor's brain that the critical means of locomotion in my friend's leg was gone. Gone, worse than if it had never been.

What I was seeing was a huge surgical scar circumventing the entire area of his quadriceps muscle. The deep depression in his flesh was mottled and tinged with pink and dead white. It lay angry, scalloped-edged, puckered from clamps and stitching, and pulling at adjacent healthy skin until it looked as though someone had been digging around with a mountain climber's pick, with no thought or compassion that it was a human being who was being tortured at will. The scar looked old and rock-hard to the touch, as though it had been there for years and years. And yet …

_Oh God!_

That was the moment when the force field phenomenon finally let go of my mind and my body. I'd been straining so hard in Gregg's direction that when it released me, I lurched forward, and almost crashed into this shoulder. I pulled back barely in time to keep from knocking him over onto the floor, and sat down with an abrupt dig at the edge of the couch. Tentatively, I reached out and touched his elbow with the tips of my fingers, searching for a response. There was none. He was deeply unconscious, but his breath still hitched raggedly in his throat.

I gathered his body into my arms and his head lolled drunkenly on my shoulder. I sat still, waiting for him to come to awareness. I looked down for a moment, and caught the grotesque leg injury in my peripheral vision, wishing I could straighten out the affected limb. But it wasn't possible … not that and support his senseless body at the same time.

After a time I heard him moan. I hugged him close to me and waited for consciousness to return. He must not look at the leg. What made that important, I wasn't sure, but it was. Another shock to his system, he didn't need.

Again he whimpered, and I tightened my grip. Hugged his arms to his sides so he would not flail them and injure himself further.

When, at last, he began to stir, I whispered his name and closed my eyes so he would be less apt to see my tear-streaked face.

And my arms closed on empty air!

I collapsed into the edge of the couch, and caught myself just in time to keep from wiping up the floor with my face.

When I opened my eyes, Gregg was gone and I was no longer on the floor of the living room, but propped against a pile of pillows in his huge queen-size bed. I looked around, disoriented at first, and then reality came crashing back.

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The dream had come full circle, and I awakened to pain, such as I had never known before!

Morning sunlight poured through the blinds beside the bed and I reached for my bottle of Vicodin before the pain spiked its early morning reminder of exactly who was boss ..

In the bedroom doorway, a tall lanky body leaned into the doorjamb and called to me gently.

"Hey Buckaroo …"

Gregg was dressed casually. His wavy silver-in-chestnut hair was meticulously combed, and he was freshly shaven and smelled of Old Spice. He looked tanned and sexy in blue jeans, moccasins with no socks and a plaid sport shirt, faded but elegant on his slender frame.

"Hey, House …" I answered him with as much spark as I could manage this early in the morning. I smiled and watched him as he walked to my bedside and sat down carefully on the edge at my side.

"How is it?" He asked, looking pointedly at the mound made by my leg on the pillow beneath the light blanket. It was still bandaged, still draining and still tender and painful two weeks after major surgery.

The infarction had hit without warning and they'd misdiagnosed it for three days before locating the blood clot and going in to flush it out. Complications had ensued, resulting in removal of the necrotic muscle and causing irreparable nerve damage. I knew I would be lucky to regain even limited use of the leg, and knew also that crutches or a wheelchair would be a constant companion now and forever.

I shrugged. "I'm fine."

He smiled and expelled a soft breath through his nose. "You are such a liar!" His large hand rose to my face and he touched my cheek with his knuckles.

"Your breakfast is almost ready. Would you rather eat first? Or go to the bathroom first?

I can accommodate either way." His blue eyes were incredibly sad, and nothing he could do, no matter the width and breadth of the smile, could hide that fact.

"Bathroom first, then breakfast. Okay?" I hated to be touched. Touch meant pain, but he was infinitely patient and infinitely gentle. I would have bitten my tongue in half rather than give any indication that he had hurt me …

I spent most of the morning sleeping, spaced out on my boxcar full of medications, and the incredibly strange dream came back a few times to haunt my senses. In the dream I was the healthy one, shoring Gregg up and supporting him in his veil of pain and anger.

"Dream Wilson" had the advantage of a depth of understanding, and what it was like for someone else to be the caretaker of a man who would never get better … never return to a full and normal life. Thanks to that terrible dream, I gained an incredible insight on how not to torture the one human being who would give anything, sacrifice any part of himself required or implied by his charge.

"Dream Wilson" was blessed with the chance to be on the giving end, and therefore the recipient of a full measure of a love he could never experience any other way.

In the afternoon, Gregg was there beside me when I awoke to new pain, and his gentle hands counted out and dispensed my meds with a smile and an encouraging word. I was blessed indeed.

And when his strong arms reached beneath my shoulders and knees and lifted me easily from the bed to carry me out to the couch, I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him have the satisfaction of giving me everything I had given him in the dream.

He was not going anywhere.

Heaven was only a dream away …

That's all, Folks!

9


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